A familiar voice greets my USA arrival

I've just arrived in a cold Los Angeles - and who's was the first English accent I heard? Yep, you guessed it, David Beckham.
No he wasn't walking down the street in a sarong or popping out of the barbers with a new hair do - he was on the telly as part of his continual quest to make it big in the US.
And what was Becks up to? Well with the American soccer season at an end, he wasn't out on the pitch - instead he was sitting in a diner having lunch with none other than Snoop Dogg - as part of Snoop's TV show, Father Hood, which is big over here right now.
Its a little like The Osbornes but rather than feature Sharon and Ossie, it has Snoop bringing up his kids in LA. Anyway, Snoop was taking his mate 'Dave' out for a chicken salad at the diner and they were chatting about soccer and rap music. Becks was trying to play it cool but looked a bit stupid sitting next to ice cool Snoop.
Still that David Beckham factor is still big over here, but as I wander the streets of up-market Santa Monica, I wonder how big of a deal he really is over here.
Its one year since Beckham made that move to the LA Galaxy and sure, the sports shops are full of Galaxy shirts with Beckham 23 on the back - but I don't see anyone wearing them - and I don't think they really sell that well.I think the plan is really to try and make the LA Galaxy and adidas brand big in other parts of the world - why else would LA Galaxy have recently toured in Australia and New Zealand?And you can quite imagine that there will be repeats of their friendlies against the likes of Chelsea last summer when English clubs are looking for a big name game at the start of their new season in August.
Until then, it seems Beckham is a much bigger name in showbiz circles - but when it comes to the actual soccer side, its my impression that most Amercian sports fans, still think the man is a bit of a joke.

Crab racing is as sporty as Fiji gets

BEFORE jetting in to the US I spent ten days in Fiji - and even on a tropical island, there's some kind of sport to bet on!

Away from the main island of Vita Levu I took a boat out to the island of Mana which is about 10 miles away from the capital, Nadi. On Mana its a slow pace of life, and the only real sports are windsurfing and kayaking - although I did take part in the island's 82nd International Crab Race.

This was a race with a difference - there were ten crabs taking part and each was auditioned before the race. This audition comprised of placing them in the centre of a circle and seeing how fast it would take them to scarper to the outer rim of that circle. The winning crab would be the first to take part.

Rather than bet on each crab, each crab was auctioned off based on how fast it seemed in the audition and to tell each crab apart they were given there own names and nationalities.We had the controversial Marion Jones crab from the USA, Nelson Mandela from South Africa and Jackie Chan from China - not to mention the Maradona crab which apparently hails from Brazil!Despite seeing other crabs that were faster and more nimble, I bid $12 Fijian Dollars (£4) for the Jonny Wilkinson crab - after all I was the only English person there so had to spend my cash on a slice of my own country.With my Jonny crab in the centre of the circle under an ice cream tub with the other nine crabs I was hopeful he would hurtle out towards that rim - and enable me to scoop the $90 Fijian Dollar (£30) first prize.

Sadly for me, Jonny had a nightmare - Nelson Mandela defied age to race home over the rim - and scooped the owner a return of nine times on their original stake. As for my investment in Jonny - well it just reinforces my view that I can stand rugby!

New Zealand in tatters after rugby disaster

YOU dont get much for a pair - not in this game.
Yep, the biggest clue to New Zealand's sporting psyche came halfway through my three weeks in this remote and generally quite country.
I was filling up the camper van I had hired in Taupo on the North Island and when I went in to hand over my $50 for a tank of unleaded, I spotted a sign on the counter.'Free All Black with every purchase'.I laughed at the big basket of three inch high All Black figure sitting in their plastic packets behind the cashier as I handed over my money."You want some?" said the cashier.
I paused for a second, half-smiled and said nothing."Take the whole damn lot if you want" he added. I grabbed a couple as my cousin is a rugby fan and thats why I walked out with my car keys in one hand and plastic figures of All Blacks Daniel Carter and Joe Rokocoko.
You see interest in the finest sports team in the country is at an all time low - and this is a nation still feeling the pain of last autumns rugby world cup disaster.
I got talking to a boat owner in the pretty town of Russell in the Bay of Islands and he explained just why the country was still hurting so bad. The All Blacks expected to win the World Cup. Simple as that. Nothing less would do. When they were drawn in their group against Italy, Portugal, Scotland and Romania and most of the country didnt bother to watch. These were just warm up games for the knock-out phase. They demolished their way through allowing just 35 points to be conceeded and scoring over 300 for themselves.
When they met the French in Cardiff the nation switched on. The French, who had been embarrased on their own patch in the opening match were surely be dispatched with equal ease.The All Blacks were 13-3 up and cruising when the imploded after some questionable refereeing decisions saw them lose in dramatic circumstances.The fall out from the World Cup was imense. Millions of dollars of sponsorship and other revenue was lost as the Kiwi bandwagon flipped over and laid on its roof. It was a write-off job.
Four months on and you cant get a positive rugby conversation out of most Kiwis. They are certainly a proud nation but there's little they can do for four years apart from wait and make sure it doesnt happen again.
Sad thing is walking around Auckland there are still dozens of locals wearing their proud black shirts and on Queens Street, which runs through the heart of town, the big rugby shop is called All Blacks, Champions Of The World.
Until 2011 then, the Kiwis will probably still be sulking - and I doubt that tray of plastic rugby figures will be getting any smaller.

Australian soccer is a step back in time

ON my first night in Sydney nine years ago I spent two hours in a club with my mate trying to work out which of the women we were talking to at the bar were actually transvestites.
On my last Saturday night in Sydney, nine years ago, I spent the evening asleep on a bench at the airport waiting for a Sunday morning flight home as a security guard paced up and down beside me.
And I’ve got to say that both experiences were probably better than my latest Saturday night in Sydney watching the city’s football team.
Sydney FC, in fifth place, were taking on eighth and bottom place Perth Glory in the Hyundai A-League. Australia’s top flight has been through one of those oh-so common sports rebrandings – the local newspaper refers to the teams as franchises, the teams have new names and colours and before the match there’s even a reminder over the PA system to get your entries in for the clubs new nickname competition.
But the A-League is more like the Z-League when it comes to football. And the atmosphere at the Sydney Football Stadium is a little odd too.
When I last visited Australia in 1998 I actually watched Sydney, then called Sydney United, in action against Brisbane Strikers. The match was also a Saturday night, pre-pub kick-about, the fans were mainly ex-pats in their 40s and 50s wearing Celtic and Leeds shirts and the football was combative to say the least.
Now though the game is all about diving and pushing and shoving – all niggly fouls and ‘not me ref’ incidents.
I spent the match in The Cove – an area behind one of the goals reserved for the real hardcore fans. Though such is the nature of hardcore fans in Sydney that I was able to pay 18 dollars (eight pounds) for my ticket on the intenet. Games rarely sell out here.
The Cove is full of the sort of Australians we always wanted to send out of our country – beer drinking, overweight, raucous and some truly dreadful hair.
If you thought the mullet went out of fashion with Hoddle and Waddle in 1987, think again. Twenty years on there are mullets galore here.
The fans in The Cove whip each other up into a frenzy with their songs straight off the terraces of England in the early 70s.
Their central defender Mark Rudan is off to join former Sydney boss Pierre Littbarski at Avispa Fukuoka in Japan and as this is his last game, the home crowd are keen to recite their little ditty for him:
“Mark Rudan is a big blue man/Get past him if you f**kin’ can/Try a little trick/He’ll make you look a dick/He’s big Mark Ru-dan”
Most of the chants are of a dreadful throwback nature – United We Stand, Hey Jude, Nick Nack Padywack – I mean which credible football fans in 2007 would chant “Give a dog a bone”?
Sydney play in a kit similar to Wycombe Wanderers and the standard of football is pretty much like watching Wycombe despite the fact there are five players on the pitch who have played in England.
Sydney’s star man is former Middlesbrough striker Juninho but he doesn’t play tonight. By the time the teams take to the field Hayden Foxe (ex West Ham), Tony Popovic (Crystal Palace), Steve Corica (Wolves), Nicky Rizzo (Liverpool) and most curiously, Michael Bridges are in the respective line-ups.
Most of the players in the A-League are mid thirty-something former Socceroos – John Aloisi is probably the star name in the league at the moment.
As for Bridges, still only 29, the former Leeds and Sunderland man signed from Hull City in August forms a three-strong attack with Corica and rising star Alex Brosque, who is being watched in the crowd by new national boss Pim Verbeek.
Perth score twice late in the first half through Billy Celeski and soon after the break they are 3-0 up to the delight of their tiny contingent of visiting fans.
Steve Corica pulls one back straight away but by the time Michael Bridges slots in a 90th minute goal, Perth have scored again with Celeski completing his hat-trick and the game finishes 4-2 to the away team.
The football, to be honest, was shocking. – It’s easy to see how the standard of football in a nation like Australia drops when the best players are asleep in Europe waiting to play in the top flights in England, Scotland, Holland and Germany later that day.
But then football is way down most Australians list of sports they follow behind cricket, rugby, Aussie rules and surfing, so that may be why attending a match here feels like being in a timewarp.
Oh, and just to complete the retro feel to the whole occasion, a punch-up between two booze-fuelled Sydney fans breaks out just yards from me as the game draws to a close.
And to think just a few weeks ago Sydney beat David Beckham’s LA Galaxy 5-3 in the same stadium. It seems tonight the only thing worth beating was a path to the pub for a post-match pint.